Folks have always been up in arms about burning the flag, depending on which side of the aisle they're standing. Not only was it considered unpatriotic to do such while Obama was president, but it was also considered racist. In fact, this blog probably helped drive the colloquial meme that anything anti-Obama = racist.

But losing citizenship is right much. If one wants to burn the flag, burn it. I think it's some crybaby weak shit. People need to stop going into hysterics every time they don't get their way. But losing citizenship is harsh. Let's face reality here. Most of those with a burn-a-flag disposition are heavy reliant on America to take care of them. They're not the types who would do well abroad, bereft of cushy benefits and the suchlike.

Of course it's an absurd idea. But Donald is a fan of Constitution-burning, so it's to be expected.

The real freedom-of-speech issues will come to fore if he tries to make some media outlet shut up because they're saying mean things about him. Or if he demands Congress pass the Kick The Crap Out Of Black Lives Matter Act of 2017.

Flag burning should be protected as free speech, of course, but it's not a strict left/right dichotomy when it comes to who agrees with me.

Read the old Supremes decisions. Scalia found it was protected speech. Justice Stevens, on the other hand, found it was not.

His reasoning? We can't just go burn the Lincoln Memorial!

It seems that Justice Stevens thought there was only one flag. I am pretty sure burning a replica of the Lincoln Memorial is legal.

I wonder how much a flag would have to look like a flag for it to be banned? What if I just colored the design on a piece of paper and burned that? What if all I had was a maroon crayon instead of a red one? If I write the words "This is the American flag" on a piece of paper and burn that, would that be banned?

That flag stands for America. A flag is a symbol and has always been a symbol of a country, and while the idea is just a tad archaic, but it is what it is! "What so proudly we hailed" To burn or desecrate it is an act of major disrespect and it should def not be done and should be punished yes!

Trump's comments about flag-burning were probably just him popping off like the unhinged Twitter troll he is. I don't expect any actual presidential actions to come of it. But there are some more interesting recent comments of his ...

Trump Quote Of The Day (regarding the rampant corruption he intends to engage in): "The law's totally on my side, the president can't have a conflict of interest."

….(k)The flag, when it is in such condition that it is no longer a fitting emblem for display, should be destroyed in a dignified way, preferably by burning. (Added Pub. L. 105–225, § 2(a), Aug. 12, 1998, 112 Stat. 1497.)

"MOT didn't give a shit about Hillary selling State Department favors for cash, now he has his panties in a bunch over what he imagines Trump might do."

Possibly because that never happened?

Donating money to a charitable foundation, the recipients of which are poor, diseased, and oppressed people does not constitute corruption, despite what the Trump campaign and certain idiotic members of the media, seem to have convinced themselves.

Donald's bank accounts getting fatter from global real estate deals he extorts through the power of the federal government most definitely does.

I believe people should be allowed to burn the flag. I also oppose stop and frisk. But I am sure a lot of older black people in some Chicago neighborhoods would be glad to have kids in saggy pants stopped and searched. There isn't much to go on yet, but it looks like Trump isn't as thin skinned as we thought. He is interviewing his harshest critics and people of different races. He picked Nikki Haley for U.N. Ambassador. I think that is a nothing position. You should be eloquent but you vote the way you are told to. His Attorney General pick is by far the most questionable so far. You should not have someone who might be racist in that position. So far it looks like Trump will be good on peace. Hillary would gladly kill anybody her donors paid her to. We already know that Art of the Deal author Trump will be a better negotiator than Obama. The first thing Obama did when he started Obamacare was concede to the pharmaceutical companies that he wouldn't try to negotiate wholesale prices. Trump negotiated a deal to keep 1,000 jobs in the United States today, with a air condition company that was going to move to Mexico. I'm sure a lot of minority races would be glad if more jobs were available. Unfortunately Trump doesn't appear to be off to a promising start when it comes to lawfully protecting minorities' civil rights.

"That flag stands for America. A flag is a symbol and has always been a symbol of a country, and while the idea is just a tad archaic, but it is what it is! "What so proudly we hailed" To burn or desecrate it is an act of major disrespect and it should def not be done and should be punished yes!"

In a country that burned blah people and let the people who did it get away scot free I say burn baby burn. If you care more about a piece of cloth than a human being we may have a problem.

The Confederate flag stands for 300+ years of enslavement, torture, abuse, rape and murder -yet it is not illegal for citizens to don/sport the American Swastika. Given the chronological order of events and the sheer number of lives tarnished the German Swastika is the German Confederate flag quite possibly. If burning the American flag is punishable by incarceration and or a fine then so should displaying the Confederate flag. Just my two cents.

Every morning in grammar school, we were obligated to stand and repeat the "Pledge of Allegiance," while saluting the flag by placing our hands "over our hearts" as a sign of fealty. We learned about "Divide and Conquer" and "Manifest Destiny." We were indoctrinated with stories of something, something blue in 1492, cherry trees and a whole bunch of other stuff that resembles a huge field of chewed up grass. I also remember hearing (and how the teacher smiled) of how the indigenous people were screwed for $24 worth of beads and blankets.So for me, the flag doesn't mean that much. We live in a divided nation contrary to the wishes of Francis Bellamy, a Christian Socialist and author of the pledge.

@1:29 PUL-EEZ!! Trump isn't going to hire Romney, he just wanted him to lick his ass for all the (true) stuff he said about him!!And he's a DAMN. FOOLfor doing it!!

@PX, I get your poimt, but burning the flag doesn't change anything for Black folks one way or another. With this past election, America lost its self imposed title as moral leader of the world anyway.

^^^^^Nonesense. The auto industry was never going to go under. What Obama did was to circumvent the established bankruptcy reorganization process by using federal money to bail out the banks and to pay off the unions who had donated to his campaign.

Without the bailout, the owners of the car companies and their creditors would have been forced to pay for their mistakes, and the unions would have been forced to renegotiate their contracts. The result would have been more competetive companies with more secure jobs than today. Eight years into the Obama bailout, and the car companies were still sending jobs overseas - until Trump stopped them.

"How 'bout we go on down to Kingston Town and light up a Jamaican flag, or Mexico City and toast one?"

We all know, unequivocally and without exception, that such would be considered a xenophobic, racist, regressive slight, perpetrated by the white man against innocent POC victims. For fuck's sake, you can't even wear the American Flag on your shirt in America if it's Cinco De Mayo without being suspended and dragged through the mud as a white supremacist via four dozen mainstream news outlets.

Mexico and Jamaica are nations where national pride isn't called Xenophobia. When Mexico wants to close its southern borders off to S and C American migrants, that's their business. Mexico needs to do what's best for Mexico, and they have every right to control the flow of illegal immigrants into the nation. The same views espoused by a white American? You see it: "Herr Trump! Racist Hitler Mao Stalin Hitler! Fascism!"

The problem with progressives, in terms of these hypocritical, cherry-picked social stances, is that they're only clung to in the expectation that they'll play well in the long con of the self-fulfilling "I-told-you-so" prophecy; e.g. all those I-knew-it-would-come-true Trump's-America stories that all turned out to be wholly phony. Field doesn't ever, not a single time in his life, blog about that, because it's counter-narrative. Grasping the social stance is just step #1. Then comes pushing the panic button and shouting "I TOLD YOU SO! RACIST WHITES!" every time a drunk black police officer is asked to pay upfront for his drinks.

The shame of it, for non-progressives like myself who aren't really Trump fans, is that their inability to themselves change into more tolerant people will keep Trump and his ilk in power. Americans are fed up with the millions who cry wolf over everything from fake shit Swastikas and Klan sightings to make-believe incidences of gay-bashing and suchlike.

MAGA: That's bullshit and you know it. Bankruptcy and reorganization wasn't gonna happen because, if you can remember, the credit markets were still frozen from the largest economic crash since the great depression. I find it illuminating that people who praise Trump for "saving jobs" actually hate working people so much that they will construct entire bogus histories around how evil they believe unions to be. The auto unions had renegotiated their contracts downward three times already when it became apparent that the crash was simply going to wipe them out. The fact that the companies were being grossly mismanaged was not the fault of the unions, as much as you want it to be. Unions are labor. Those companies were not mislabored, they were mismanaged. And I thought you Trumplets were pretending to care about the white working class, what happened to that lie already?

"@PX, I get your poimt, but burning the flag doesn't change anything for Black folks one way or another. With this past election, America lost its self imposed title as moral leader of the world anyway."

Not sure I said burning a flag will change anything for anyone but I guess you got my point of not getting riled up over the destruction of a piece of cloth while dismissing the suffering/death of a human being. America has always been funny that way.

And many of those who engaged in lynching were prosecuted under the law.

You've lived a pampered, protected life. STFU about lies from the past."

Bullshit, if they were "guilty" they should have been allowed to get their day in court. Double bullshit about those who engaged in lynching were prosecuted. Emmitt Till anyone? Medgar Evers? These aren't lies and I'll talk about whatever I choose to thankyouverymuch.

"Burning the flag is a useless waste of time! Surprised at you Pilot :) Now,something like a million man march (all races) for jobs, education and a better quality of life...now you're talking! ;D"

Not sure what your point is Ms. Dessert. Burning a flag may be a waste of time, I wouldn't know. I agree that direct action is a better use of time and resources. My only point was I won't get riled up over a piece of cloth that represents good and a lot of bad. I will get riled up over harm committed against a person.

"if they were "guilty" they should have been allowed to get their day in court."

They had too much experience with Reconstruction courts which let savage criminals off for what is currently called "racial justice". A large minority of those lynched were White, either criminals or Republican agitators.

"Double bullshit about those who engaged in lynching were prosecuted."

Some WERE prosecuted. And acquitted by juries of their peers every time. Prosecutors knew better than to tell the community that its sense of justice was wrong.

"Emmitt Till anyone? Medgar Evers?"

Medgar Evers was an out-of-uniform soldier in a war against White people, and properly dealt with. Emmett Till was a budding (and, if his own claims were trustworthy, accomplished) rapist going in the footsteps of his father, Louis Till. (Louis Till was prosecuted for raping 3 Italian women in the occupation of Italy, murdering 1. He was convicted and hanged. Louis Till was in Italy in the first place because a judge gave him a choice between doing time for his own crimes or enlisting. Obviously, military discipline did not reform his savage nature.)

You really ought to pay attention to things. You amped up the war on Whites, in ways like slapping "racist" on everyone who didn't completely kowtow to PC dogma. The pushback started to get organized with the TEA party, asking you nicely to cut it out. You refused. Now you've got the election of Donald J. Trump and the rise of the Alt-Right, telling you to cut it out.

You have a choice now. You can refuse again, riot in the streets, try to shut down the country unless your childish and ridiculous demands are met... and finally be made to cut it out, with massive application of deadly force, ethnic cleansing, walled ghettoes to keep you in with your own criminal class instead of making us deal with it.

Well if you're so riled up over harm committed against a person, why don't you try burning the flag? :)

I'm not being sarcastic here, but I would like an answer as to why you would or wouldn't. Thanks! :)"

Not exactly burned a flag but been present when one was destroyed, may even have participated but that was over 20 years ago so I can't remember details. Would I do it now? Depends on the situation but I really don't see me taking the time to do something like that when there are so many other ways to do what I think needs to be done. It would basically be a waste of my time. Anyhoo I would MUCH rather burn a confederate flag but again I don't have time for such.

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